Preparing Android logs

Use this guide if you’re debugging an Android device, app, or framework: phones, tablets, wearables, TVs, AAOS head units, or any AOSP-based device.

A bugreport's subsystem health grid: network, power, CPU, security and more, each with a severity and the issues found.
A bugreport's subsystem health grid: network, power, CPU, security and more, each with a severity and the issues found.

Accepted log types

  • Bugreports: .zip from adb bugreport, including OEM-style nested bugreport zips. Multiple bugreport zips can be uploaded in a single batch. Everything inside is analyzed, not just the main report: native crash dumps, the thread dumps behind each ANR, the recovery logs, and both kernel logs (the running system’s and the previous boot’s console) each get their own results. The update logs and the radio, event and stats buffers (and the previous boot’s system log, when captured) are each searchable as a log of their own. The Kernel and Boot tab says which boot each finding came from, and if the capture carries no kernel or boot log it says so rather than reporting a healthy kernel.
  • logcat: output from adb logcat, the Android Studio Logcat panel, or CI/CD log artifacts.
  • dmesg: kernel ring buffer (auto-included in bugreports; can also be uploaded standalone).
  • ANR traces: traces.txt and per-incident captures.
  • Tombstones: native crash dumps from /data/tombstones/.
  • dumpsys output: full or per-service dumps (e.g. dumpsys batterystats).
  • Event logs: output of adb logcat -b events.

For the full accepted/rejected list, see Supported file types.

Capturing logs

adb

# Full bugreport (recommended: bundles logcat, dmesg, dumpsys, etc.)
adb bugreport bugreport.zip

# Standalone logcat (current buffer dump)
adb logcat -d > logcat.txt

# Specific buffers (radio for modem debugging, events for system events)
adb logcat -d -b radio > logcat-radio.txt
adb logcat -d -b events > logcat-events.txt

# Kernel ring buffer
adb shell dmesg > dmesg.txt

# Tombstones (requires root or eng/userdebug build)
adb pull /data/tombstones ./tombstones

Android Studio

In the Logcat tool window, click the gear icon and choose Restore Default View to ensure timestamps and tags are present, then export with the Export button. Both plain-text and JSON exports are accepted.

CI / CD artifacts

CI logs from Firebase Test Lab, Gradle Managed Devices, or your own emulator pipelines can be uploaded directly as long as they are text. Bugreports collected in CI runs upload as .zip without conversion.

Example questions to ask

Ask from the Research tab once the file is analyzed. Reach for Quick Search when you already know what you’re after, Deep Research when you need the root cause.

Quick Search for fast, cited lookups:

  • “Show all OOM kills in the last hour.”
  • “Find SELinux denials for system_server.”
  • “What killed MediaService?”

Deep Research for multi-step root-cause investigations:

  • “Why did com.example.app ANR at 14:32, and trace it back to its cause?”
  • “Why did the device reboot?”
  • “What’s the root cause of the battery drain?”

See Quick Search and Deep Research for how the two modes differ.

Next

  • Quick Search: fast natural-language answers from a single file.
  • Deep Research: multi-step investigation across kernel, framework, and apps.
  • Delta Comparison: compare logs across builds, devices, or before/after a change.
  • Source-grounded findings: on supported Android versions, findings cite the platform source line that emitted them.